


The Scavenger Job

by dyadsaber



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And with who's alive and who's not, Ben Solo Never Becomes Kylo Ren, Ben Solo POV, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, For the most part, Force Bond (Star Wars), I like SW Rebels a lot and that is going to be obvious, I played fast and loose with the timeline when I needed to, Lots of plot, Palpatine is Dead, Rebels Victorious Verse, Slow Burn, Smuggler Ben Solo, Solo and Son Smuggling Co is open for business, Warnings May Change, but rest assured the dyad will find each other, lots of things are different, plan to post weekly when life allows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-25 12:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30089349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyadsaber/pseuds/dyadsaber
Summary: After arguing with Luke, newly minted Jedi Ben Solo thought a smuggling run with his dad and Chewie would be just the thing to clear his head.  But when the Force draws him to a bounty for a scavenger girl, he knows he has to find her. He just doesn't know why.
Relationships: Ben Solo & Han Solo, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	1. One Last Job Before Going Home

“Any thoughts on our next move, Kid?” Han asked. 

Ben knew the question was coming. The credits from the _Falcon’s_ most recent job were stored in the secret compartment under the floor, and Han’s scans said they’d made the jump to hyperspace free and clear. He shrugged and leaned back, hands behind his head, legs stretched out as if he didn’t have a care in the world. 

“You ready to go home, Old Man?” he asked.

Han mirrored his son’s shrug. 

“Not necessarily, but I’d rather not burn too much fuel flying in the wrong direction if you’ve got other ideas.” 

From the cockpit, Chewie reminded Ben that this was _his_ run, and they’d all agreed to stay out as long as he needed to. 

Han didn’t press him immediately. Instead, he puttered around in the cabinets with a kettle and a tin of caf, and when the galley timer sounded, he set a cup in front of his son and one in the empty place at the table across from him. 

“You’re going to have to talk to her eventually,” Han said, sliding onto the bench. “When you said you needed time, I didn’t ask questions but…” 

“I talked to Mom yesterday. Over the comms.” 

“For less than a minute.” 

Chewie grumbled that Ben had cut off the call to New Alderaan before he’d had a chance to say hello. 

“Long enough to let her know we’re safe. Much longer than that, and she would have been on me about Uncle Luke,” Ben muttered. 

“You’re going to have to talk to _him_ eventually too, you know,” Han said. 

“Because there aren’t so many Jedi in the galaxy that we can afford to be at odds?” Ben asked sharply, spitting out the words Luke had used to try to make him stay. It hadn’t worked.

“Because he’s family. And I know he relies on you at the Academy on Orsa Tir.” 

Ben rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t. He’s got enough of us around he’s _allowed_ to take his trials and get his pat on the head.” 

“You mean ‘fully trained Jedi,’” Han attempted to correct him. 

“Whatever _that_ means,” Ben scoffed. “Besides, the academy’s got Jacen, and he’s more Luke’s successor than I ever wanted to be.” He felt a momentary pang of guilt, making light of the responsibility resting on his best friend’s shoulders, but Jacen Syndulla was more than capable of doing what Luke asked of him, and he wore the weight of the Jedi legacy with an ease that had always eluded Ben. 

“I’m not saying you have to talk to him right now. Or even today, tomorrow, or three days from now. I’m just saying… running out into the black of space to get away from your problems just puts them on ice. They’re still there when you get back. Trust me. I’ve done it.” 

Ben remembered angry conversations in the next room, both of his parents’ tempers flaring, their presences in the Force spiky and sharp, his mother angrily stalking out one door and his father out the other, the sound of the _Falcon’s_ engines firing in haste on the palace’s private landing pad, and then a long and lonely silence. 

“I know,” he said. He threw back a long swig of caf, hot and bitter, and set the mug gently on the table. “I’m not running. I’m clearing my head. Besides, Luke always told us that after we’d earned the right to call ourselves Jedi, we could travel where we thought was best, make our own path, serve the galaxy in our own way.” 

“I don’t think smuggling runs with your old man were what he had in mind,” Han said. 

“I’m figuring out what _my own way_ looks like, all right? And it doesn’t look like hanging around the academy with Luke breathing down my neck waiting for me to step out of line, or at home with Mom trying to hide her disappointment that I don’t want to play prince or Jedi for visiting politicians.” 

It was Han’s turn to be sharp. “Your mother doesn’t want you to _play_ at anything. She wants you to help you be the things you _are._ ” 

Ben’s shoulders sagged. “I know she does. I didn’t mean that.” 

Han reached across the table and put a hand on his son’s until Ben met his eyes. “Hey,” Han said, “we’re not running heavy right now. There’s always a few spare jobs lying around the holonet for an enterprising crew. Let’s take a look, see if any of them seem promising and not too hot for us…” 

<<And not something your wife would be ashamed of,>> Chewie called from the other room. 

“That goes without saying!” Han called back. Ben raised an eyebrow. “What? It _does!”_

Han reached for a datapad sitting on the bench, turned it on, and started to scroll through listings. Some had holographic images attached, some had holovids, and some had nothing more than a grainy image and a bare bones description of the work or the bounty. 

Ben kept half an eye on the jobs as they flashed by, but turned on the dejarik table and called, “Hey Chewie, want a game?” The Wookie came in from the cockpit and settled himself across from Ben. 

<<Your turn for first move _,_ >> Chewie said. 

“You sure about that? I mean… not like you need the advantage, but…” 

<<Your turn, Ben.>>Chewie crossed his arms, and Ben made a first move. 

They were halfway through a game that Ben thought he might have half a chance of winning when he glanced over at the screen of the datapad. Han had passed over dozens of jobs by now, most of them on first glance, but a few after more careful consideration. Chewie had vetoed a shipment of something called “puffer pigs,” with a, <<Too easily scared. Won’t like me,>> and Han had refused to work with someone he owed credits to from a sabacc game a decade in the past. 

“You sure you want to do that, Ben?” Han asked. Ben’s hand was on a piece, about to make a truly stupid move. He shook his head and looked away from the datapad. The job on the screen had all of the marks of a Black Sun operation, and both Solos agreed it was best to avoid that particular mess for both practical and ethical reasons. 

Ben made a move that was much smarter, but as soon as his turn was done, his eyes were back on the datapad. He didn’t know why. He didn’t care which job Han picked, as long as it kept them away from New Alderaan for a while longer, but he couldn’t look away - not even when Chewie rumbled,<<It’s your turn again.>> There was no ghostly voice in his ear, telling him to watch, nothing out of the ordinary at all, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he should pay attention to what Han was doing. 

“Just give me second, Chewie. I… need to watch this.” _I’m trusting my feelings,_ he almost said, but it sounded too much like Luke. 

Han brought up a job with a grainy image and a few lines of text, and Ben felt a surge of urgency. Whatever was on that screen, he needed to know it as much as he needed to breathe. Before Ben could say anything, Han shook his head and brought up the next listing, a liquor shipment to an isolationist planet with draconian import taxes and lax enforcement. 

“Wait! Go back!” Ben reached out and hit the control on the datapad himself. 

“What was wrong with that liquor run? That looked like just our style!” Han asked. 

“I want to read this one,” Ben said. 

The description was short. “Human female, age 16-20 years. Primary occupation: scavenger. Has staff training, mechanical experience. Wanted alive. Last seen: Gorse. Other possible locations include Jakku and other salvage-heavy worlds.” The rest of the listing gave a location on the derelict mining planet of Gorse where the image had been taken and offered an obscene amount of money for whoever found the girl and made contact with the client, who didn’t give a name. Just a comm signature. The holoimage of the target was so grainy it was useless. If Ben squinted, he could just make out the outline of a human woman from the shoulders up, her head wrapped in some sort of cloth, taken as she passed a camera she couldn’t see. 

“This one?” Han asked. He looked at his son like he had gundarks crawling out of his ears. “When did we start chasing bounties?” He scanned the listing again. “And _messy_ ones. That much money with that little to go on… not even a name for the target! Someone’s got something to hide here, and we don’t want to be anywhere near it.” 

“We need to take it,” Ben said. The words were out of his mouth before he knew it, and what’s more, he _meant_ them. 

Han leaned forward and jabbed a finger at the datapad. “This is an open call, and with that many credits up for grabs… the place is going to be crawling with hunters, if it isn’t already,” Han protested. “And…” Now he was jabbing a finger into Ben’s face, “you’re really suggesting we nab a girl we know nothing about, to send her to whatever fate someone with a lot of credits has in store for her?” 

“I don’t know what I’m suggesting. But we need to find her,” Ben said. He stood up, datapad in hand, and stared hard at the image. It was, as it had been before, a terrible picture of a girl who could be anyone. 

“Is this… a Jedi thing?” Han asked. 

“It’s a feeling,” Ben said, then grudgingly added, “a feeling that tells me the Force has something to do with it. Whatever it is, I can’t ignore it. You don’t have to come, Dad, if you think it’s going to be too messy. I can look out for myself. Drop me at a spaceport and I’ll find my way.” 

“I’d never hear the end of it if I did that,” Han said. “And besides, if the Force is telling my son to run into a nest of hunters all chasing the same bounty, I’ll be damned if I don’t go with him.”

Chewie voiced his agreement with Han. 

“Chewie feels the same,” Han said, as if Ben hadn’t understood Shyriiwook from the time he was five. 

Ben was already punching new coordinates into the nav computer so it could start calculating their next jump. Han was looking into fuel and supply stops along the way, and Chewie pulled up information about Gorse, the derelict planet where the mystery girl had last been spotted. Ben had meant what he said about going alone, but he’d never done a job without any backup, so he was relieved to have family along for the ride. 

When he sat back down at his game, Chewie won in ten moves, and Ben went back to staring at the listing. He read it through twice more, but the urgency that had been so strong before was gone. He reached out through the Force, trying to connect with the words, or perhaps the image, and he thought he felt nothing at first, but then, he realized that what he felt was the calm, clear assurance that he was doing the right thing. 

_Trust in the Force,_ Luke would say if he was there. 

Ben rolled his eyes. He hated it when his uncle was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Gorse](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Gorse) is the setting of the Rebels novel New Dawn. I haven't been kind to it.  
> [Shyriiwook](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Shyriiwook)


	2. The Girl in the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben follows a feeling and runs into trouble. Han has a drink.

“Anything we need to know about Gorse?” Ben asked. The  _ Falcon  _ was on its approach to the dark side of the planet, which was the only one that was habitable. The planet had a locked orbit, and the side facing the sun was barren and heat-blasted. 

“Not much  _ to  _ know,” Han said. “The Empire mined the place and its moon for some rare metal, and when the mines on the hot side blew through too many droids or ran out, the Empire left, and that was in the middle of the war, so no one stuck around to break down all that heavy processing machinery - looks like none of the big companies thought extracting the equipment was worth the risk or the expense. The locals are barely hanging on, as long as junkers are interested in prying up the useful bits. Maybe that’s what your scavenger girl is doing?”

“She’s not  _ my  _ girl,” Ben said. 

The ship lurched more than it should have as it hit atmosphere, and Chewie grumbled about needing a new aft stabilizer. 

The  _ Falcon  _ touched down on a landing pad at the edge of the spaceport, and when the doors opened, the feeling came back. Ben stopped halfway down the loading ramp.  _ She’s here. _ It wasn’t like being able to sense another being through the Force, the way he could Han, or Chewie, or the two Jawas crossing the street a few meters away. It was an inescapable, unerring certainty that she was close, and if he kept walking in the direction the pull was telling him to go, he’d run right into her. 

“She’s still here,” he said. 

“The Force tell you that?” Han asked. 

“Yeah. It did.” It was the truth, and Han didn’t need to know that the Force was usually much less obvious than this. This wasn’t a possible future, or a feeling that needed examining. It was a fact. 

The street was lined with lights that cast wide yellow circles on the ground, nearly overlapping, and most business had colored lights in the windows. They passed a place with low music drifting from the doorway and the outline of a bright purple drink in the window, and Han nodded toward it. 

“Why don’t get get a drink and some food, see if we can get any leads on where she might be,” he suggested. He turned to Chewie. “And maybe find someone who’s got a stabilizer to sell us.” 

Chewie liked that plan. 

“I don’t need to ask,” Ben said. “She’s that way. I can feel it.” He pointed toward a cluster of old industrial buildings where the lights were fewer and further between. 

“You sure about that?” Han asked. 

“Would I say it if I wasn’t?” Ben didn’t mean to be so irritated. He knew how strange he sounded, but standing still was getting under his skin. He needed to be moving toward the girl, and every second he didn’t felt like a waste of time. “How about this: I’ll follow this feeling, see if it leads me to her, and you and Chewie find the part and get some information just in case I’m wrong.” 

“Fine, but Chewie comes with you,” Han said. “I’m just having a drink and looking for a stabilizer. You’re going after a girl with a bounty on her. You need the backup more than I do.” 

Ben was already down the ramp. “Let me know if you hear anything useful!” he called over his shoulder. 

Chewie put a hand on Han’s shoulder before following Ben. 

<<I’ll watch his back as I would yours,>> he said. 

“Yeah, buddy. I know,” Han said. 

Three mercenaries in battered stormtrooper armor muscled their way past Han and into the street on his way into the cantina. They didn’t look happy, and they didn’t look local. They were arguing about where to go next as they passed. Han could spot an extraction team in his sleep, and they were headed the same direction his son had wandered off in. He sighed, grabbed a booth in a dark corner of the room, and reached for his comm. 

“Like I thought, we’re not the first ones here. Ex-Imperial mercs, at least three of them. They don’t seem to have much better idea than your ‘that way,’ though, so you might beat them to her. Just watch yourself,” he murmured. The room wasn’t empty, but he didn’t need the whole place knowing his business. 

“Got it. Thanks, Dad.” Ben didn’t sound nearly worried enough, but Han supposed that lightsaber his son carried gave him a reason to be confident. 

After sitting for a minute to make sure the mercs weren’t going to double back, he sauntered up to the bar and ordered a drink - the most complicated he could find on the menu. 

“Sort of a rough crowd I saw leaving earlier,” Han said as the bartender chopped some sort of little candied fruit and drizzled syrup into the bottom of a glass. He could feel his teeth rotting already. “That normal for around here?” 

“All sorts of offworlders tonight, but you’re the first one who stuck around and ordered,” the bartender said. 

“You seemed like the type of person who could help me find… a particular piece of equipment. My crew and I have a client with a particular need for a piece of an old thorilide processor, and we thought this might be the place to find a person to sell one to us. My son heard there might be someone, a girl, maybe? Wears goggles? Works the old processing sites for salvage?” 

Before Han had finished the sentence, the bartender had switched out his stirring spoon for a heavy blaster and was pointing it at Han’s face. The blaster was cobbled together from four different models, but it looked functional. 

“You’re the third person to come in here asking about her tonight,” the bartender said conversationally. “I’ll tell you what I told them. I don’t know where this girl is. Why are all of you after her, anyway? Whatever it is, you can leave her alone.” 

No one else in the cantina seemed to care that a blaster had come out, and Han decided that meant he didn’t need to care either. The guy looked like he was used to waving his big blaster in people’s faces without having to actually shoot. 

“How about you put down your blaster, give me the drink I paid for, and I’ll tell you the truth.”  _ Or a version of it, anyway.  _

The bartender lowered his weapon and pushed a purple drink with bits of candied fruit floating in it at him. Han took a drink - it was sweeter than he would have liked, but stronger than he’d expected. Not bad. 

“Ok, so we’re not here to find a part, unless you know someone who can sell us a stabilizer for an older model Corellian freighter. We’re here for the girl, too, but we don’t want to hurt her.” Han watched the bartender’s face, and he took a gamble. From what he’d seen of Gorse, it was the kind of place where a lot of people drifted on and off world, and whoever she was, she likely wasn’t  _ from  _ here. “She’s an old friend of my son’s. She reached out to him, let him know she was in trouble, but not what kind.” 

“This place is awfully out of your way for a favor for your kid’s friend,” the bartender said. He’d put the blaster back behind the bar, but Han knew he still had his hand on it. 

“Look, she sounded scared, and she needs our help. You said two other groups have other been in here?” 

“The ex troopers you saw, and a Trandoshan and a couple of humans were here together this morning.” 

“Then they’ve got a head start,” Han reasoned, furrowing his brow with concern. “Eventually, they’ll find someone who knows her and wants to talk. They’re pros. So, even if you tell us where she is, it might be too late for us to help. Think of it this way: if I’m lying, we’re gonna get to her at the same time as the other hunters, and we’ll all just have it out with each other and see who gets the prize. But if I AM telling the truth, and we want to help her, the girl will have someone on her side when the shooting starts.” Han took another long sip of his drink and watched the guy on the other side of the bar. He was close to telling Han what he needed to know. He could feel it. 

The bartender took his hand off the blaster. “Three story building on the edge of town. Blue metal siding on the first floor. Used to be an office and warehouse for secondary processing. That’s where she holes up.” 

Han finished his drink in one gulp. It was growing on him. “Thanks,” he said, pushing the glass back across the bar. 

“She cracked the skulls of a couple of offworlders who made trouble for me one night,” the bartender said. “I owe her. Don’t hurt her.”

Ben’s comm crackled. 

“Still following your feeling?” Han’s voice on the other end was hushed. 

“Almost to the edge of town,” Ben said. There were only a few lights this far out, and the hulks of old, abandoned buildings loomed all around him. “Getting closer, though.” 

“Look for an old secondary processing office. Three stories. Blue siding.” 

The street dead ended into a row of derelict office buildings. One had a flickering outer light that, when it was on, illuminated the faded letters “Sec” and “sing.” 

“Found it,” Ben said. He touched the blaster at his hip. There was movement in the darkness, and the Force swirled and heaved in a way that meant someone nearby meant to do violence. Inside the old office, the girl still waited. He was sure of that. 

“They beat us here,” he said softly, then, to Han, “We might be coming in hot. The  _ Falcon’s  _ gonna have to wait for that stabilizer.” 

<<What’s our move?>> Chewie asked. 

“We go in, I find her, you watch my back, I convince her to trust me and not the people who are trying to capture her, and we fight our way out.” 

<<So a Solo plan, then.>>

“You got a better idea?” 

Chewie motioned for him to go in the door. There was more light inside, but not much. Old, green track lighting had been installed on the walls and floors, wired into a dying battery, from the looks of it. Still, it was enough to see by. One hand on his blaster, he picked his way across the entryway and through a set of double doors. They led to a central courtyard that looked up at the other floors. As soon as he was through the doors, there was blaster fire from a floor above. He fired back at the shooter. He was pretty sure it wasn’t the girl. The closer he got, the more he knew, and right now she was… hiding. Further into the maze of the first floor. 

He ran across the courtyard, firing up into the darkness. He heard someone scream and drop, and saw a flash of stormtrooper armor up above. 

“Who’s the idiot?” a gruff voice yelled over a radio. It bounced eerily off of the walls of the courtyard. 

“Someone who didn’t get the message that we’re waiting for her to come out and settling things then,” a second voice said, this one much closer. A Trandoshan flanked by two humans, all carrying heavy blasters, stepped out from behind half-ruined wall. 

“We could all shoot each other in the dark, or we could wait. We have the exits blocked. She’s not getting out without us knowing. Be smart, kid. Wait with us,” the Trandoshan said. 

They were standing between Ben and a doorway, and he knew what he had to do. 

“Thanks for the warning,” Ben said, and ran straight at them, pulling his lightsaber from its holster across his shoulders and igniting it in one smooth motion. The blue light from his weapon threw off the hunters’ first shots. Chewie had one human down with a shot from his bowcaster before they could even come close. Once their aim adjusted, Ben deflected each blaster bolt with ease. He’d met training droids with more complicated programming, but in the hunters’ defence, they probably didn’t meet many Jedi. 

The Trandoshan and his remaining human partner, a lanky man in a red leather vest, apparently decided they didn’t want to be between Ben and the door that led further into the building, so they turned and ran, and he chased them into the old maze of offices. His lightsaber would have made him a glowing target, so he retracted the blade, but ran with it still in his hand. 

Some of the offices still had doors, others were open to the outside, and in some places the ceiling of the corridor had fallen in, and Ben had to clamber over pile of rubble. There were plenty of places for the hunters to take cover, and Ben hoped he could pick them off before he got to the girl. Above him, he could hear the ex-stormtroopers on the radio with each other through the gaps in the ceiling. 

Without warning, the Force  _ rippled,  _ and the building shook on its foundations. There was the sound of a floor crumbling and a single strangled cry above them before one of the stormtroopers and a heavy load of rock and metal crashed to the floor to his right. The stormtrooper wasn’t moving.

Chewie called a question from behind him. 

“I don’t know… an earthquake?” Ben called back. “And  _ no  _ it wasn’t me!” 

The shaking had made him lose sight of the other hunters, and he stopped for a moment. The Trandoshan and Red Vest were still close. From the way they were moving, they felt like they were searching, hallway by hallway, office by office. They didn’t know where she was! There were still the two troopers above him, too, but they were still on the wrong floor. Maybe, just maybe, he could get to her first. 

The corridor he’d been running down ended in a large, high ceilinged room with a window into another smaller room at the far end. The Trandoshan and his partner had their backs to him, and they were pointing their weapons into the small room through the empty window frame. The second he saw it, he  _ knew  _ the girl was in that smaller room, and she was in the hunters’ sights. He’d lost track of them while he ran, and their search pattern had gotten them here first. Both of them were pointing blasters through the broken window, though, and they didn’t turn fast enough to aim at Ben and Chewie before the bowcaster took down the bigger hunter and Ben’s blaster caught Red Vest in the side. 

Now, if they could just get out of here before the ex troopers caught up to them, too...

There was a scuffle inside the little room, and one of the stormtroopers fell backwards through the hole where the window had been and sprawled over Red Vest’s body. 

“There’s one more!” Ben yelled, just in case she didn’t know. 

From the other side of the wall, he heard the  _ thunk  _ of something solid connecting hard and fast with the last trooper’s armor, and then silence. He motioned for Chewie to step back, and Chewie reluctantly retreated to the other end of the big room. 

He reached out gently through the Force to the girl on the other side of the wall, and he began to understand why he’d been drawn to her. She was all raw power, shot through with fear and determination. 

He put his blaster back in its holster and took a step toward the window, hands out in front of him. “You ok in there?” 

He peered into the small room. The track lighting was half burned out, but what remained was enough to tell him that the girl was gone. He tried the door, and it opened easily onto an old office with a rusting desk pushed against one wall and a rumpled pallet in the darkest corner. A few choice pieces of salvage too big to grab quickly still sat on the desk. The girl had been there a few moments ago. He  _ knew  _ she had, and he could feel that she was still nearby. But there was only one door. How had she gotten out? 

Ben stilled his thoughts and reached out for her. She was  _ in  _ the wall. There must have been an entry point behind the desk. Made sense. She knew the place well, it seemed, and if she was small enough to fit in the crawl spaces, it was a good way to move around without being detected. She clearly wanted to be left alone, but he hadn’t dragged the  _ Falcon  _ all the way to Gorse to leave without figuring out who she was. He came back out into the larger storage room and followed her from the other side of the wall. She didn’t make a sound, but Ben had the Force to guide him. She stopped as soon as he got close, and her fear spiked. He backed off a little, hoping she’d take it as a friendly gesture. 

“Hey, it’s all right,” he said to the spot where he knew she was. “We’re not here to hurt….” 

And that was as far as he got before she exploded the wall at him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Han PoV for this chapter was so much fun. In fact, writing Ben and Han as father and son has been one of the unexpected joys this fic has brought me.
> 
> [Trandoshans](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Trandoshan)


	3. Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben tries to get the mystery girl to trust him. She's not having any of it.

The Force flowed through him, and he threw up a hand and stopped the chunks of concrete, wire, and metal that were hurtling towards him. Debris from the blast on either side of him crashed into the opposite wall, but any pieces that would have touched him hung in midair, quivering, caught between his power and hers. She had exploded the wall outward in all directions, and she stood alone now, her hand out in a stance that mirrored his. 

She was small, her hair covered by a dingy grey hood held in place by a pair of goggles. The rest of her clothes were too big, threadbare, or both, and the pack she carried on her back had a strap that had been mended in two places. Her eyes, which were the only part of her face he could really see, were wide as she stared at the pieces of the wall hanging in the air between them. 

“I’ll let go if you do,” Ben said. 

She blinked in surprise at the offer and lost concentration. The moment he felt her stop pushing, Ben let go on his end, and the pieces dropped harmlessly where they were. 

<<Are you hurt?>> Chewie called from the other side of the big room. 

“I’m fine! We’re both fine! Just give me a…” 

Her second attack was as unexpected as the first, and much more painful. She reached out to him again, made a fist, and threw her power at his mind. He tried to keep her out, but she was strong, and she didn’t care how much she hurt him. She was looking for… something, he didn’t know what, but it felt like she was throwing open every door to every memory he’d ever had, and all of the feelings attached to them rushed back into his consciousness at once. He gasped and stumbled back before righting himself. He calmed his mind, let the feelings flow through him without fighting them, and stumbled back another step when he realized that not all of those feelings were his. Some of them were hers. She had left herself completely open. 

_ Let’s see who you are,  _ he thought, and flung his own power at her mind. 

_ The girl hides behind a wall while two voices, a woman and a man, cry and scream and plead. The man’s voice is raised in anger, and his is silenced first. The girl puts her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming, and when she hears the woman’s body hit the floor, she doesn’t make a sound.  _

_ The boy is on display. He stands next to his mother on a balcony as a mass of people cheer below. The crowd is only curious, but he wishes they would disappear. He is his mother’s son, his uncle’s nephew. They expect him to be these things. His mother expects him to be these things. She is furious that his father isn’t with them, but she hides it behind a smile.  _

_ The girl sits cross legged on the floor of a junk shop on a desert planet, cleaning parts with a few other kids her age. The doors of the shop burst open, and men in black cloaks, men she’s seen before, point her out to the shop’s owner. Credits exchange hands. The girl is already running.  _

_ An older man in brown robes shows the boy a holovid of a Jedi with the boy’s curly hair and his mother’s eyes. It’s one of the only images of his grandfather before he turned. The Jedi in the holo laughs, and the boy shivers with the knowledge of what the young man will become. He wishes he didn’t know.  _

_ In a city with bright lights and towering skyscrapers, a woman in a red coat offers the girl a bed and a meal, and when the girl follows her, men in crisp, black Imperial uniforms are waiting. The girl wrenches her shoulder getting away.  _

_ The boy waits at an empty house on a lake. He’s been waiting for a week. His robes are packed away, and his time at home is short. His mother sends word she’s sorry. She wants to get away, but her work is important. Later, she tells him the galaxy needs her. Her planet needs her. The boy screams back that HE needs her.  _

_ The girl shares a portion of food with an older teenager on a transport. Later, she sees him talking to a man who has a holo of her face. She hides in the cargo hold until the ship makes planetfall. _

The girl had more memories of betrayal, of waking in the night and running, hungry and afraid. They came too fast to tell them apart, and just as the flow became too much for Ben to bear, the connection broke. 

She was breathing hard, and so was he. What she had done had hurt, yes, but it had also been incredibly, uncomfortably intimate. He shook his head to clear it. 

“You get what you needed?” he asked. 

The girl looked him up and down, as if she was truly seeing him for the first time. 

“You’re not alone, but you’re still… so _ lonely _ ,” she said. “The weight of who you are… of who they want you to be… you fear you’ll lose yourself.” 

“You haven’t trusted anyone since you saw your parents die,” Ben blurted out. He didn’t mean to say it so harshly, but he wanted her to know what he’d seen, how open she’d been to him. 

“It’s kept me alive, kept me free,” she snapped. She reached down and picked up a staff with a leather wrapped handle that had fallen at her feet. “Why are you following me?” 

“Well, before you threw a wall at me, I was going to offer you a ride off this planet,” he told her. 

A spark of hope flashed across her face so fast he almost missed it before it was replaced by suspicion. 

“And now?” she asked, tucking her staff behind her back. 

Ben shrugged. “Offer’s still good, but you can’t throw things around on the ship or hurt my crew. I won’t let you.” 

“Then they shouldn’t give me a reason,” she said. 

He sighed. “They won’t. Look, I’m not saying you should trust me, but I think you saw enough when you broke into my head to know I don’t mean you any harm. Either you come with me, or you take your chances with whoever finds you next.”

She didn’t take long to consider the offer. “I’ll come with you.” 

“Ship’s this way,” Ben said, pointing back the way he came. 

“So are the troopers who were guarding the exits,” she said. 

“...until they lost contact with their team inside,” Ben finished for her. She nodded. “Nothing we can’t handle, right Chewie?” 

Chewie growled in agreement, but the girl put a hand up. “I might know another way out,” she said. “One that all of us can fit through. I’ve never tried it, but this room is at the back of the building. Big loaders used to pull up and offload their hauls into bins lined up along the wall, and there had to be openings that let them do it.” She pointed to a break in the track lighting along the opposite wall. “There.” 

Ben motioned for Chewie to come over and join them at the break in the light. Now that he was closer, he could see the seam between the heavy metal door and the rest of the room, see where it had been able to slide open, but when he found the handle and gave it a strong push, it didn’t budge. 

“It’s either…” He threw his entire weight against the handle again, “rusted shut, or someone welded it closed to keep out trespassers. Either way…” he reached behind him and pulled out his lightsaber, “I can get us out.” He ignited the blade, and he saw her eyes go wide as he pushed it all the way through the metal. She’d probably never seen a lightsaber before, he realized, and that made this a day of firsts because he’d actually never done this before, but the theory was sound, and he knew it was possible. He just had to keep the blade moving at a constant speed, and if he kept the metal around the cut from getting too soft and warping the shape of the hole he was cutting… 

The metal oval he had cut out fell outward with a loud clank, leaving a hole big enough to walk through, but he and Chewie would have to duck. The back of the building looked out on unilluminated darkness, but he hadn’t exactly been quiet, so he listened in all the ways he could for the stormtroopers who were headed their way. 

“They’re still in the maze,” the girl said, coming to stand beside him. She was still staring at blue blade of his saber. “I think one of them found my false floor trap.” 

“Anything out there in the dark that would keep a ship from landing? I’d rather not have to go back through town.”

“There’s an old equipment yard close by. It’s flat. Turn on your blue sword, and have your ship meet us there.” 

Ben went through first, then the girl, then Chewie. The further they got from the edge of town, the blacker it got, and even though the girl was surefooted in the dark, she stayed close. 

He heard the  _ Falcon’s  _ engines right before the ship cruised into view, throwing light on onto all three of them. Ben waved at Han in the cockpit. 

As the ship settled on her landing gear and the loading ramp was coming down, he said, “My name’s Ben. Ben Solo. What’s yours?” 

“Rey,” she said, gripping her staff tighter as they walked up the ramp together. “Just Rey.” 


End file.
